A former minister of Education, Oby Ezekwesili, has described baseless, the allegation by Abdul-Ganiyu Galadima, national chairman of the Allied Congress Party of Nigeria (ACPN), that she was never really serious about her presidential ambition.
Dr Ezekwesili said the ACPN’s chairman Abdulganiyu Galadima’s accusations as all lies.
Speaking through Ozioma Ubabukoh, her media aide, the “Bring Back Our Girls’ co-campaigner said Galadima’s claim that she was contesting to negotiate to be minister of finance was a figment of his imagination.
Galadima was Ezekwesili’s running-mate until she announced her withdrawal from the race early on Thursday.
Ezekwesili said she withdrew from the race after due consultations with Nigerians at home and in the Diaspora.
She added that her decision to quit the race was informed by the need to help build a coalition to stop the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) from winning.
She said neither APC nor PDP could provide the kind of governance needed to reposition the country .
It would be recalled that few hours after Ezekwesili’s withdrawal from the race, Galadima called a news conference, saying Ezekwesili had not shown the commitment to be president from the beginning.
He alleged that the former minister was just in the race to negotiate to be minister of finance and that she had kept the party in the dark about her real intention.
But reacting, the former minister said there was no truth in the allegation that she diverted campaign funds.
“As for the defamatory statements made against my person by the ACPN leadership in their malicious statement, I want Nigerians to know that there is NO IOTA of truth in any of them.
“Everything ACPN wrote or said of the campaign donations is fabrication and outright lies.
“Our campaign was conducted with the highest level of transparency and accountability with impeccable evidence,” Ezekwesili said.
